The Boston Housing Market: A Look at the Modern Day "Athens of America"

Boston is known as “the Athens of America,” in part because of its wealth of modern day academies from Harvard and Tufts, to Boston College and Emerson, to nearby MIT and many many more. The phrase “back to school” has a whole new meaning in “the Hub” than in different cities. These same institutions guarantee a steady flow of young people, and young families into the Boston area, as well as supplying it with the intellectual capital needed for innovation. And that innovation often means they don’t want to leave.

As the Boston Globe recently stated: “Boston is home to the largest proportion of young adults of any major US city, passing famously young cities such as Austin and Washington. People age 20 to 34 make up more than a third of Boston’s population.” Or as Collin Lord, who runs his own Boston-area appraisal company told us: “You have this young community of start-ups, of young intellectuals, creatives, that are staying, that want to stay.”

What does that mean for the Boston housing market? It generally means there isn’t enough of it: A housing report from Northeastern University states that the city’s “vacancy rates remaining near 4 percent, considerably below the 5.5 percent rate needed for a balanced rental housing market.”

The Boston housing market continues to remedy that imbalance in creative ways, not only allocating more funds for new housing, but by re-purposing historical buildings, from churches, Navy chain forges, police stations, and more, into new condos and apartments.

If you’d like to learn more about investing in these creative solutions and innovation taking place in “the Athens of America,” read Patch of Land's Market Research Report Boston: City on a Hill (FREE Download) and see why the Boston housing market is thriving. You can also watch a replay of our Boston Webinar below: